Hostname: page-component-5f56664f6-p8hl4 Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2025-05-07T13:27:22.617Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

French Connections: The International Propagation of Trademarks in the Nineteenth Century

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  18 February 2015

Paul Duguid
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

The history of modern brands depends to a significant degree on the history of trademark law, but there are reasons to doubt how comprehensive standard versions of the latter history are. Business, economic, and even legal historians tend to accentuate the importance of the Anglo-Saxon common-law tradition and assume that the continental, civil law tradition followed in its wake. Yet the historical sequence of events suggests that almost exactly the opposite is true. Not only did the French have robust trademark law long before Great Britain and the United States, but the latter two countries only adopted trademark law after signing trademark clauses in diplomatic treaties with France. Drawing on newspaper accounts, public debates, specialist and general newspapers, as well as court cases and diplomatic negotiations, this paper argues that, to a certain degree, Anglo-Saxon trademark law was international before it was national. The evidence suggests that some of the easy verities on which arguments about modern brands, the “second industrial revolution,” and institutional economics are based may be more complex than is generally assumed.

Type
Articles
Information
Enterprise & Society , Volume 10 , Issue 1 , March 2009 , pp. 3 - 37
Copyright
Copyright © The Author(s) 2009. Published by Cambridge University Press on behalf of the Business History Conference. All rights reserved.

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

Article purchase

Temporarily unavailable

References

Bibliography of Works Cited

Books

Barnes, James J. Authors, Publishers and Politicians: The Quest for an Anglo-American Copyright Agreement, 1815–1854. London: Routledge & Keegan Paul, 1974.Google Scholar
Bedarride, Jassuda. Commentaire des Lois sur les Brevets d’Invention, sur les Noms de Fabricants, et des Lieux de Fabrication, sur les Marques de Fabrique et de. Paris: E. Thorin, 1869.Google Scholar
Beltran, Alain, Sophie, Chauveau, and Galvez-Behar, Gabriel. Des Brevets et des Marques: Une Histoire de la Propriete Industrielle. Paris: Fayard, 2001.Google Scholar
Blanc, Etienne. Traite de la Contrefacon et de sa Poursuite en Justice. Paris: Raymond, 1838.Google Scholar
Boiteau, Paul. Les Traites des Commerce: Texte de Tous Les Traites en Vigueur, Notamment des Traites Conclus avec l’Angleterre, la Belgique, la Prusse (Zollverein), et l’Italie. Paris: Guillaumin, 1863.Google Scholar
Browne, William Henry. A Treatise on the Law of Trade-Marks and Analogous Subjects. Boston, MA: Little, Brown, 1873.Google Scholar
Cameron, Rondo E. France and the Economic Development of Europe 1800–1914: Conquests of Peace and Seeds of War. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1961.Google Scholar
Clair, William St. The Reading Nation in the Romantic Period. New York: Cambridge University Press, 2004.Google Scholar
Clunet, Edouard. Du Defaut de Validite de Plusieurs Traites Diplomatiques Conclus par la France avec les Puissances Etrangeres. 2nd ed. Paris: Baillard & Cie, 1880.Google Scholar
Clunet, Edouard. De l’Etat Actuel des Relations Internationales avec les Etats-Unis en Matiere de Marques de Commerce. Paris: Baillard & Cie, 1880.Google Scholar
Cox, Rowland. A Manual of Trade-Mark Cases. Comprising Sebastian’s Digest of Trade-Mark Cases. Boston, MA: Houghton, Mifflin, 1881.Google Scholar
Deazley, Ronan. On the Origin of the Right to Copy: Charting the Movement of Copyright Law in Eighteenth-century Britain (1695–1775). Portland, OR: Hart Publishing, 2005.Google Scholar
French, George. The Equity Reports, 1853–1855. 3 vols. London: A. & G. Spottiswoode, 1854–1855.Google Scholar
Goldman, Lawrence. Science, Reform, and Politics in Victorian Britain: The Social Science Association, 1857–1886. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2002.Google Scholar
Greely, Arthur P. Foreign Patent and Trademark Laws: A Comparative Study with Tabular Statements of Essential Features of Such Laws. Washington,DC: John Byrne & Co, 1899.Google Scholar
Hesse, Carla. Publishing and Cultural Politics in Revolutionary Paris, 1789–1810. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1991.Google Scholar
Jones, Geoffrey, and Morgan, Nicholas J.. Adding Value: Brands and Marketing in Food and Drink. London: Routledge, 1994.Google Scholar
Kerly, Duncan Mackenzie. The Law of Merchandise Marks and the Criminal Law of False Marking. 3rd ed. London: Sweet & Maxwell, 1909.Google Scholar
Khan, B. Zorina. The Democratization of Invention: Patents and Copyrights in American Economic Development, 1790–1920. New York: Cambridge University Press, 2005.Google Scholar
Koehn, Nancy. Brand New: How Entrepreneurs Earned Consumers’ Trust from Wedgwood to Dell. Boston, MA: Harvard Business School Press, 2001.Google Scholar
Labbe, Paul. Les Caracteres Distinctifs des Marques de Fabrique et le Fondement de Leur Appropriation. Arras, France: E. Bouvry, 1909.Google Scholar
Laird, Pamela Walker. Advertising Progress: American Business and the Rise ofConsumer Marketing. Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1998.Google Scholar
Levi, Leone. Commercial Law, Its Principles and Administration: Or, Mercantile Law of Great Britain Compared with the Codes and Laws of Commerce of Other Countries. 2 vols. London: Benning, 1850–1852.Google Scholar
Levi, Leone. International Commercial Law: Being the Principles of Mercantile Law. 2nd ed., 2 vols. London: Stevens and Haynes, 1863.Google Scholar
Maillard de Marafy, Comte de. Le Nouveau Regime des Marques de Commerce en Angleterre: Memoire a S.E. M. le Ministre des Affaires Etrangeres. Paris: Felix Maltese, 1876.Google Scholar
Maillard de Marafy, Comte de, ed. Grand Dictionnaire International de la Propriete Industrielle au Point de Vue de Nom Commercial, des Marques de Fabrique et de Commerce. 6 vols. Paris: Union des Fabricants, 1889–1891.Google Scholar
Marriott, John. Anglo-Russian Relations, 1689–1953. London: Methuen, 1944.Google Scholar
Poland, Henry Bodkin. Trade Marks: The Merchandise Marks Act, 1862 25 & 26 Vict. c. 88. London: Crockford, 1862.Google Scholar
Projet de Loi sur les Marques de Fabrique et de Commerce. Brussels, Belgium: Weissenbruch pere, 1845.Google Scholar
Ricketson, Sam, and Ginsburg, Jane C.. International Copyright and Neighbouring Rights: The Berne Convention and Beyond. 2nd ed., 2 vols., Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2006.Google Scholar
Schechter, Frank I. The Historical Foundations of the Law Relating to Trade Marks. New York: Columbia University Press, 1925.Google Scholar
Sherman, Brad, and Bently, Lionel. The Making of Modern Intellectual Property Law: The British Experience, 1760–1911. New York: Cambridge University Press, 1999.Google Scholar
Silva Lopes, Teresa da. Global Brands: The Evolution of Multinationals in Alcoholic Beverages. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Snell, K.D.M. Annals ofthe Labouring Poor: Social Change and Agrarian England, 1660–1900. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1985.Google Scholar
Seville, Catherine. The Internationalisation of Copyright Law; Books, Buccaneers and the BlackFlagin the Nineteenth Century. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2006.Google Scholar
Strasser, Susan. Satisfaction Guaranteed: The Making ofthe American Mass Market. New York: Pantheon, 1989.Google Scholar
Tedlow, Richard. New and Improved: The Story of Mass Marketing in America. New York: Basic Books, 1990.Google Scholar
Tedlow, Richard, and Jones, Geoffrey, eds. The Rise and Fall of Mass Marketing. London: Routledge, 1993.Google Scholar
Upton, Francis H. A Treatise on the Law ofTrade Marks: With a Digest and Review of the English and American Authorities. Albany, NY: Weare C.Little, 1860.Google Scholar

Articles and Essays

“A Meeting of the Birmingham Chamber of Commerce.” Journal of the Society of Arts 6 (August 1858): 595–7.Google Scholar
Church, Roy. “Advertising Consumer Goods in the Nineteenth Century.” Economic HistoryReview 53, no. 4 (November 2000): 621–45.Google Scholar
Duguid, Paul. “Developing the Brand: The Case of Alcohol, 1800–1880.” Enterprise & Society 4, no. 3 (2003): 405–41.Google Scholar
Duguid, Paul, Teresa da Silva, Lopes, and Mercer, John. “Shifting Patterns in Marks and Registration: France, the United States and United Kingdom, 1870–1890.” Working Paper, Centre for Globalization Research, Queen Mary, University of London. CGR 21, 2009.Google Scholar
Dunham, Arthur Louis. “Chevalier’s Plan of 1859: The Basis of the New Commercial Policy of Napoleon III.” American Historical Review 30, no. 1 (October 1924): 72–76.Google Scholar
Epstein, Stephan. “Craft Guilds in the Pre-Modern Economy: A Discussion.” Economic History Review 61, no. 1 (February 2008): 155–74.Google Scholar
Higgins, David, and Tweedale, Geoffrey. “Asset or Liability? Trade Marks in the Sheffield Cutlery and Tool Trades.” Business History 37, no. 3 (July 1995): 1–27.Google Scholar
Higgins, David, and Tweedale, Geoffrey. “The Trade Marks Question and the Lancashire Cotton Textile Industry.” Textile History 27, no. 2 (1996): 207–28.Google Scholar
Ilbert, Courtnay. “The Centenary of the French Civil Code.” Journal ofthe SocietyofComparative Legislation, New Series 6, no. 2 (1905): 218–31.Google Scholar
Iliasu, A.A. “The Cobden-Chevalier Commercial Treaty of 1860.” Historical Journal 14, no. 1 (March 1971): 67–98.Google Scholar
Lamoreaux, Naomi, and Rosenthal, Jean-Laurent “Legal Regime and Contractual Flexibility: A Comparison of Business’s Organizational Choices in France and the United States during the Era ofIndustrialization.” American Law and Economics Review 7, no. 1 (Spring 2005): 28–60.Google Scholar
Leone, Levi. “On Trade Marks.” Journal ofthe Society of Arts 7 (March 1859): 262–73.Google Scholar
Lobban, Michael. “Preparing for Fusion: Reforming the Nineteenth-Century Court of Chancery. Part II.” Law and History Review 22, no. 2 (Autumn 2004): 565–99.Google Scholar
Matthews, Branders. “The Evolution of Copyright.” Political Science Quarterly 5, no. 2 (December 1890): 583–602.Google Scholar
Nicholls, Henry. “Trade Marks.” Journal of the Society of Arts 7 (January 1864): 159.Google Scholar
North, Douglass C., and R. Weingast, Barry “Constitutions and Commitment: The Evolution of Institutional Governing Public Choice in Seventeenth-Century England.” Journal of Economic History 49, no. 4 (December 1989): 803–32.Google Scholar
Nye, John Vincent. “The Myth of Free-Trade Britain and Fortress France: Tariffs and Trade in the Nineteenth Century.” Journal of Economic History 51, no. 1 (March 1991): 23–46.Google Scholar
“On the Hundredth Anniversary of the ‘Commercial & Financial Chronicle.’” Bulletin ofthe Business History Society 13, no. 5 (November 1939): 67–72.Google Scholar
Richardson, Gary. “A Tale of Two Theories: Monopolies and Craft Guilds in Medieval England and Modern Imagination.” Journal of the History of Economic Thought 23, no. 2 (2001): 217–42.Google Scholar
Rines, Robert. “Some Areas of Basic Difference.” Idea-The Journal of Law & Technology 28, no. 1 (Spring, 1987): 5–12.Google Scholar
Rosen, Zvi S. “In Search of the Trade-Mark Cases.” (September 16, 2008). http://ssrn.com/abstract=1268558.Google Scholar
Ryland, Arthur. “The Fraudulent Imitation of Trade Marks.” Transactions of the National Association for the Promotion ofSocial Science 299 (1859): 229–30.Google Scholar
Stanziani, Alessandro. “La Construction de la Qualite du Vin, 1880-1914.” In La Qualite des Produits en France, ed. Stanziani, Alessandro, 123–50. Paris: Belin, 2003.Google Scholar
Stanziani, Alessandro. “Negotiating Innovation in a Market Economy: Foodstuffs and Beverages Adulteration in Nineteenth-Century France.” Enterprise & Society 8, no. 2 (2007): 375–412.Google Scholar
Stone, Harlan F. “The Common Law in the United States.” Harvard Law Review 50, no. 1 (November 1936): 4–26.Google Scholar
“Trade-Marks.” Merchants’ Magazine 21, no. 2 (August, 1849): 199–200.Google Scholar
“Trade Marks Committee.” Journal of the Society of Arts 14 (1866): 213.Google Scholar
Underdown, E.M. “On the Piracy of Trade Marks.” Journal of the Society of Arts 14 (April 1866): 370–74.Google Scholar
Wilkins, Mira. “The Neglected Intangible Asset: The Influence of the Trade Mark on the Rise of the Modern.” Business History 34 (January 1992): 66–99.Google Scholar
Wilkins, Mira. “When and Why Brand Names in Food and Drink?” In Adding Value: Brands and Marketing in Food and Drink, ed. Jones, G. and Morgan, N. 15–40. London: Routledge, 1994.Google Scholar
Wood, Henry Trueman. “The Registration of Trade Marks.” Journal of the Royal Society of Arts 24 (December, 1875): 17–31.Google Scholar

Dissertation

Housewright, Ross. "Early Development of American Trademark Law." Masters thesis, School ofInformation, University of California, Berkeley, 2007.Google Scholar

Magazines and Newspapers

Annales de la Propriete Industrielle, Artistique, et Litteraire: Journal de Legislation, Doctrine, et Jurisprudence Francaises et Etrangeres, Paris [citations of this work refer to the sequentially numbered articles, not to pages].Google Scholar
Journal of the Society of Arts, London.Google Scholar
Le Cognac, Cognac.Google Scholar
The Merchants’ Magazine and Commercial Review, New York.Google Scholar
Le Moniteur Universel, Paris.Google Scholar
Le Moniteur Vinicole, Paris.Google Scholar
NewYork City, New York.Google Scholar
New York Times, New York.Google Scholar
Ridley’s Wine and Spirit Circular, London.Google Scholar
Times, London.Google Scholar
Transactions ofthe National Association for the Promotion ofSocial Science, London.Google Scholar
Wine Trade Review, London.Google Scholar

Archival Sources

Archives de Paris, Paris, France.Google Scholar
Archives Departementales dela Marne, Chalons-en-Champagne, France.Google Scholar
Archives Nationales, Paris, France.Google Scholar
California State Archives, Sacramento, California.Google Scholar
National Archives, England, Kew.Google Scholar

Government Documents

Annual Report of the Commissioner of Patents, Washington, D.C.: Government Printing Office.Google Scholar
Journals of the House of Commons, London: House of Commons.Google Scholar
Journals of the House of Lords, London: House of Lords.Google Scholar
“Registration of Trade-Marks,” 46th Congress, 3rd session (1881) Ex. Doc 83.Google Scholar
Report from the Select Committee on Trade Marks Bill and Merchandize Marks Bill, London: House of Commons, 1862 [citations of this work refer to the numbered paragraphs, not to pages].Google Scholar
Report of the Commissioners Appointed to Revise the Statutes Relating to Patents, Trade and Other Marks, and Trade and Commercial Names, Under Act of Congress Approved June 4, 1898. Washington, D.C.: Government Printing Office, 1902.Google Scholar

Collections of Laws and Treaties

Trade Marks Journal, London.Google Scholar
Collection Complete des Lois, Decrets, Ordonnances, Reglements et Avis du Conseil d’Etat, Paris: Pommeret & Moreu.Google Scholar
British and Foreign State Papers, London: Ridgeway.Google Scholar
Bulletin des Lois du Royaume de France, Paris: Imprimerie Royale.Google Scholar
Treaties, Conventions, International Acts, Protocols, and Agreements between the United States ofAmerica and other Powers. 2 vols. Washington, D.C.: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1910.Google Scholar